anwhile, back with the students, the rhythmic movents of the carriage filled the night. Outside, the ghostly terrain of the Demon Kingdom blurred into streaks of violet mist and faint, flickering flas.
Most of the students were asleep or lost in quiet conversation, wanting to recharge their batteries before they arrived at Asthotar before dawn.
Albedo had remained in the sa seat the entire ti, his legs crossed and his eyes closed as mana shimred around him, pulsing like a slow heartbeat as he trained, and read through the Draconic mories he had inherited when he broke through.
Ruin and Havoc were seated by his side, Crimson Apocalypse Flas and Violet Energy linking them together. He was deep in focus, keeping his Soul Weapons close to him.
With his increase in strength, as Soul Weapons, they had gained more power and abilities, even giving him the chance to use 2 more Execution Shots as the biggest improvent.
His improvent in rank also allowed him to edit and manipulate Havoc and Ruin to greater extents, which also would diversify his combat skills.
~WHOOSH!~
At that very mont, Havoc and Ruin rose from the floor, floating alongside Albedo as he willed it with his mind, and the weapons disassembled into dozens of suspended components.
From gears, chambers, runic barrels and more, each piece of his Soul Weapon was a delicately crafted piece of his very being, and each of these pieces rotated slowly in its own orbit as they were connected through Albedo’s mana and will.
He was deep in focus, refining the internal sequence of Havoc’s mana channels as his rank improvent gave him the ability to do so.
He infused more runes into the Soul Weapons, which worked to increase flow efficiency and stabilize spell compression. The glow from the pistols pulsed in sync with the pulse and shimrs of his mana.
Then, as he was in the middle of all this,
"Fascinating..."
A soft voice broke through the low hum of the carriage. Albedo’s eyes opened, faintly glowing with residual energy, and the disassembled fragnts of Havoc and Ruin clicked back into place instantly, reassembling themselves with the tallic precision of a heartbeat.
He opened his eyes and spotted Orphelia Moonquiver, the Student Council President.
He raised an eyebrow, as he hadn’t interacted with any of the Student Council mbers throughout this exchange, as they had spent most of the ti keeping to themselves, yet now Orphelia was looking right at him.
Her silver-blonde hair glead faintly in the mana light, cascading down to her back like spun frost. Her eyes, calm, sky-blue, shimred faintly with the reflection of Havoc’s dissipating aura.
Even her presence carried the composed poise of nobility, wrapped in the faint scent of ozone and moonflowers.
"I didn’t an to intrude," she said softly, though curiosity brightened her gaze, "I just couldn’t help noticing the way your weapons... shifted. First of all, your Soul Power seems to be much more intense than the average Soul Weapon, and secondly, you can manipulate it?"
She said, tilting her head as she spoke. Before Albedo could even respond, she imdiately continued, "The array sequence you used to disassemble and rebind them, it wasn’t a chanical reload, was it? It looked more like a self-stabilizing archaic mana field."
Albedo blinked once, the faintest curve of amusent touching his lips, "You could tell?"
That archaic mana field was actually sothing he had learned from the inherited Dragon mories, and the fact Orphelia could recognize it surprised him greatly, as no-one else around him had managed to do so.
"Of course," Orphelia said, stepping closer with graceful restraint, "I specialize in Applied Mana Engineering and Understanding. Essentially, I work to engineer new ways to use mana, especially related to Combat. I’ve already invented 4 new spells this year,"
Orphelia said, and Albedo nodded. From the Novel, he rembered her as a minor character who was more obsessed with Magical Studies and only played a part as curious observer to Lucian and his party, mostly because she felt they could help her studies at tis.
She had developed over a dozen spells that actively helped Lucian and his group in their journey, from offensive to supportive or miscellaneous spells, and she also engineered a variety of new technological products that improved quality of life across the world.
"The mont I saw those pistols at the Academy demonstration, I was intrigued. It was the first ti I’ve seen a gun as a Soul Weapon, and they are intricately crafted, far beyond what I could adeptly analyze at my current level," She said, her gaze analytical and almost reverent.
Her voice carried none of the arrogance so many nobles wore like armor, only genuine intrigue.
Albedo tilted his head slightly. "They’re called Havoc and Ruin. They draw directly from my mana core and reconfigure based on how I will it, each form is a different mana compression principle, and I can also edit it to greater effect now,"
Orphelia’s eyes brightened, "Ah...but then how does the modes work? I saw their effects changing during battle. With your improved strength, I’ve noticed the power of the Weapons scaling. That makes sense from a Soul Power perspective, but not from an effect perspective.
"The Modes are probably a combination of my Soul Power and the various Universal Laws, Fla, Gravity, Absorption, Abyssal & Execution. The stronger I beco, the more I can tap into these laws,"
Orphelia stared for a long mont, expression caught sowhere between awe and disbelief. "That’s, near impossible. Even the Imperial Arcane Foundry couldn’t rge more than three laws into a single construct. The rune feedback would destabilize the entire weapon!"
"That’s why it isn’t a construct," Albedo said simply, "Soul Weapons are so of the least researched artifacts in existence, they directly contradict a-lot of the Universal Magic Laws, which is why they’re so rare,"
Orphelia’s expression shifted from awe to a focused, scholarly gleam. She reached into the folds of her academy cloak and withdrew a small, leather-bound notebook, the corners worn, pages filled with neat, elegant script and arcane diagrams written in shimring silver ink.
Without hesitation, she flipped it open to a page already brimming with sketches of magic circles, runic arrays, and fragnted theories, all centered around one bold title at the top: "Soul Weapon Phenona - Conjectures and Inconsistencies."
"I’ve been studying Soul Weapons for years," she said, her voice low but laced with restrained excitent. "Even using my Family influence to access the Academy’s restricted archives and reading through research papers, none of it makes sense,"
Her quill flickered with a faint mana glow as it began moving of its own accord, jotting down what Albedo had said, mana reconfiguration, adaptive compression, law resonance, multi-field synthesis.
Albedo raised an eyebrow at this. He was intrigued because Orphelia never spoke about this research in the original novel, but he wasn’t surprised, as she hopped through various research topics like a curious bunny, using her exceptional IQ to apply herself to all of them.
"Every scholar who’s published books on the topic going back to the earliest eras all reached the sa dead end," She went on, frustrating creeping into her tone.
She sighed, a small puff of air escaping her lips as her quill paused mid-sentence. "We can construct mana weapons, replicate ancient relics, even harness Law-bound artifacts... but Soul Weapons remain untouchable. Every Soul Weapon is untouchably better than any other weapon in the hands of the wielder, and it isn’t even close,"
"Every attempt throughout history to artificially create one has failed, either the vessel collapses, or the weapon devours the wielder’s soul outright."
Albedo watched her quietly. Her passion was unmistakable, a genuine hunger for understanding, the sa kind that had once burned in him when he’d first awakened to this world.
"Maybe that’s another of the Universe’s Laws, you can’t force Soul Weapons?" Albedo said, but Orphelia hurriedly shook her head.
"Impossible. First of all, the Abyss can sotis deflect the Universal Laws, which ans they are able to be bent with enough power or knowledge," She said, and Albedo couldn’t deny the correctness of that sentence.
"Secondly, when the Abyss corrupts soone with a Soul Weapon, the weapon itself sotis changes, which ans the Abyss alters the Soul’s foundation and can trigger them to awaken a 2nd Soul Weapon."
Orphelia looked up from her notebook, eyes narrowing slightly in thought, "My theory has always been artificially creating one is impossible, because Soul Weapons are already engrained in us from birth, we just have no idea how to trigger it’s awakening,"
"Well, Soul Magic is probably the most under-researched Magic field of all of them, so you have a goal if you want to truly understand them," Albedo said, and Orphelia nodded.
As the duo were gonna speak again, a loud bell echoed across all the carriages, waking everyone up from their naps or whatever they were doing, and Ysvara appeared before all of them.
"Get ready, we’re coming close to Asthotar,"
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